News Beijing’s wartime movies releases spark fear of renewed anti-Japanese hostility

Tomorrow, on 3 September, China will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory in the war against Japan with a massive military parade. On this occasion, China also released a wave of Chinese anti-Japan propaganda films. The star-studded, big-budget epics dominating Chinese cinemas this summer are about the country's fight against Japan during World War II. In movie theatres, audiences have risen to sing the national anthem. Children have been moved to tears, vowing to become soldiers when they grow up.

One film, "Dead to Rights," about Japan's 1937 invasion of the Chinese city of Nanjing, follows a group of Chinese who smuggle out photographs and help document the killing of tens of thousands of civilians, an event known as the Nanjing Massacre. During an interactive showing in southwestern China, an actor dressed as a soldier shouts at moviegoers, "The Japanese want to destroy our country and exterminate us! Will you let them?" The audience, shown in a social media video pumping their fists, shouts back, "We will not!"

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Today, some commentators question whether the movies are teaching the next generation to hate — and whether children should be watching such violent content. "Dead to Rights" features piles of corpses in streets and the killing of children, and depicts Japanese soldiers as gleefully taking bets on who can kill more Chinese people. Social media users have posted videos of children destroying collections of trading cards of the Japanese superhero Ultraman. In one clip, a little girl says through tears, "I want to kill all Japanese." In another, a young boy asks, "How can a country be so ruthless and cold?" A voice, off-camera, can be heard saying, "They're animals."

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In a Nikkei article, Philip J Cunningham argues that while the movies are blood orgies, there are signs that mainland audiences in 2025, and maybe even state censors, are wary of dated anti-Japan tropes in which the visceral hate is overdone to the point of revulsion.

Chinese soft-power programming aims to stimulate patriotic feelings and give agency to victims of what was a terrible war, but its ability to treat history correctly is open to question. Furthermore, with Sino-Japan relations on edge, there is the not unreasonable fear that films trafficking violent tropes could inspire random acts of violence. Yet sometimes such productions seem to have no effect at all. A common reaction this year, judging from anecdotal evidence and posts on Chinese social media, is a shrug and a yawn. After sitting through the Nanjing film, I heard one viewer say, "That's it! I'm not watching any more of these."

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Japan is China's No. 1 tourist destination, and what Chinese tourists see is nothing like what the war films teach them to see.

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Are we guilty of the sins of our ancestors?

Should we mention the Uyghurs?

when in doubt, drum up nationalist fervor!

Wonder if I could sell them a ballcap to wear?

Grandpa Frank said:

View attachment 131548 Wonder if I could sell them a ballcap to wear?

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Grandpa Frank said:

View attachment 131548 Wonder if I could sell them a ballcap to wear?

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Grandpa Frank, you've spelled it incorrectly…It's M-A-G-A…Make Amer…oh I get it now!

I have to say, all that precision marching and parading etc is really impressive especially when juxtaposed with Trump's birthday parade. No wonder the Chinese are Olympic gold medal-winners in diving. 'The deity of your parents choosing' help us if they start entering Strictly Ballroom/Dancing with the Stars.

The oh-so-glorious Long March was Mao and company continuously running away from the nationalists, who with US aid were fighting the Japanese in China. And via the Long March, they were saving their energy to fight the nationalists when Japan finally did withdraw.